From the Literary Giants Series

Reynaldo Hahn is hosted for tea by Marcel Proust in his cork walled parlor.

Our Latest Assemblage

We've not finalized the title yet. Gertrude and Alice in Poodle Paradise, perhaps? Paris, Poodles and the Pair?
That's Paul Bowles with Basket (Gertrude and Alice's poodle) on the right. Gertrude and Alice are tooling around in their 1920 Ford, Godiva. You will also see a few images of Suzette and Bobo from the classic Playtime Poodles.

My Trip to Paris This Afternoon

Une caricature du grand voleur d'ordure sur le boulevard grand au milieu du matin

The Curious Case of the Counter Tenor

Long before Gertrude Stein set up her famed salon in Paris, the parties chez Marcel Proust were the in spot to be on the Continent. In fact, many say they were the inspiration for both Boys in the Band AND Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Marcel playing a hybrid of Michael and Martha.

They usually evolved from Marcel being a tipsy but witty host, to getting a bit aggressive with a game of get-the-guest, to a screaming, hysterical break down and finally a sober, deeply depressed realization just as the sun crept over the Eiffel Tower.

We're not sure if Louis Sullivan was invited to any of the Proust parties during his studies in Paris or trips there in the 1890s when he was at the peak of his game, but we do know that composer Reynaldo Hahn was often the center of the parties as he introduced his latest tunes.

Both Hahn and Sullivan were sort of proto-bears but with far better grooming and hygiene than those of today. Though they sported virile full beards, they always wore bespoke suits, crisply starched shirts and glorious cravats.

Hahn and Proust always had a conflicted friendship, and it's easy to see why Hahn was always the pursued and the Proust with his bland western European pasty complexion was the fawning pursuer. Hahn was not only a Jewish-Venezuelan-naturalized French citizen but also a child prodigy.

Despite his manly Andean demeanor, he produced fussy, frilly chamber music. The line in The Boys in the Band -- "Michael doesn't have charm, he has counter charm" -- derived from Hahn's fondness for counter tenors. We've heard that Hahn had a deep, booming bass voice, and all were surprised when his tunes were introduced with male voices that many mistook for castratos or boy sopranos.


In 1963 -- a mere four years before The Boys in the Band was unleashed on the world, Paul Cadmus imagined the two muses entertaining and enlightening Reynaldo Hahn. It's hard to surmise which might have evoked Proust if either evoked him at all. Likely Proust was sitting in the corner, slowly switching from club soda to straight vodka, oblivious to someone saying, "Turning, turning" as Hahn became enraptured by Mr. Sullivan on a visit from Chicago.

Let's not dismiss poor Marcel, however. We continue to read him and re-read him, even attempting to digest a dozen or so pages a day untranslated. Hahn may have been the beau of the ball, however, as Msr. Proust once said (not quoted in Boys in the Band) "That's all good and well, but do you have a questionnaire named after you in Vanity Fair?" In the meantime, we are still enraptured by the gloriously surreal imaginings of Proust and Hahn from the Parisian Gerard Bertrand which you can find here.

Aging, Paris, Kentridge, Basenjis, Revolution, Caffeine, Hemispheric Incongruence

Sometimes I bemoan the fact that I live in a cultural backwater that has the audacity to call itself the "Paris of the Pacific" (sorry, that's Santiago), but then I am sometimes surprised by the offerings right here in this little berg by the bay. This weekend has been a good example.

This morning I dashed down to be early in line for the SFMOMA presentation of William Kentridge - Five Themes that so many of my friends have been raving about. (And most of my friends are raving, raging or some unseemly combination of both). I had a good feeling about the show when, as I was Twittering on my TREO as I advanced in line, I looked to the right and saw a basenji walking by and looking up at me as if she knew she was peering into the eyes of one of the cult of guardians of the African dingos. The Kentridge show is worthy of all the hype -- a heady mix of drawrings, short films (that include homages of that superb Parisian George Melies and that benign German Lotte Reiniger), assemblages, puppet shows, constructions, musings on aging and other stuff).

It was a great show, but there was no time to doddle and I rushed off to MUNI to that charming arrondissement footsteps away from the Pacific, West Portal, where I ventured to catch the matinee of Faubourg '36. I went to get my ticket early and asked the agent if I should return quickly to ensure I got a seat. He rolled his eyes and said, "Uh, that's probably not going to be an issue." (Confirmed later when the lights went down on me and the three other people in the theater. I guess I over estimated the appeal of musical comedies about the clash of Fascists and Leftists in the first third of the 20th Century Paris.)

So I headed over to Fresca (which bills itself as Noveau Peruvian Cuisine) for a nice Peruvian crab salad. However, instead of Twittering, I got into a sort of nasty argument via IMing with one of my exes in Park Slope over my distaste of the clash of cultures at Fresca. Granted, the food and service were good, but they were playing salsa music and served me chips and salsa. Wrong hemisphere and continent. "Oh, it doesn't matter, it's still Latino," W___ in Park Slope texted back. "Would you say that if you were in a restaurant in Tokyo and got bruschetta while they played polka music but defended because it was all from the Northern Hemisphere?"

"Oh, GB, you obsess about things that just don't matter," W___ texted back.

"Oh, and by the way -- noveau Peruvian Cuisine? Excúseme, si no es: ¿el nuevo cocinar de los Peruvian?"

Well, at least Faubourg 36 (marketed in the U.S. as Paris '36 since apparently the distributors thing people in the U.S. are so dumb they barely know where Paris is, let alone being abl to locate one of its better known arrondissements) did not disappoint and was what it should have been: a sentimental two-hour tale of peasants occupying a theater taking it out of the clutches of a Fascist landlord. The number just kept getting bigger and loonier. And, like any self respecting musical, it had big number about going to the sea.
While its charming yet infirm middle-aged male stars were in long swim trunks and tank tops, they outfitted male (sexily Leftist) star Clovis Cornillac in a revealingly thin strip of brief beachwear. Only then did it connect of who he reminded me of -- gay porn legend Jeff Strykker.

Though Cornillac was cast as the "fetching young male lead" he is nearly 42. And it reminded me (going back to Kentridge's themes on aging and Melies) that the French have long had a history of allowing both male and female stars to play such roles into a time when, well by comparison in the U.S. , they'd have Cloris Leachman on Dancing with the stars. I could not help but think ofArletty at nearly 50 playing the "babe" in Les enfants du paradis. Or consider Mistinguett in this clip at 60 playing a young mother singing to her "baby". Perhaps they felt that by casting a nine-year-old girl as the baby, no one would notice that more than one spring had passed since her coming out debut.

These thoughts filled my had as I hopped on the K-train from West Portal (a neighborhood that is surreal to me like most western San Francisco Arrondissements because they feel so non-San Francisco) and then to the Balboa Park BART and then up to Ritual, where it has become a ritual for me to meet up with Friendatella Saturday afternoons to gossip and share insights on the meaning of life and culture. We've debated about the meaning of this roasterie's logo. Is it the flag of Turkey or the hammer and sickle or a gangland razor swung upon the throats of hypocrites. I used to despise this place because of the long lines, abundance of 20-something hipsters pecking away on their iMacs with the self-righteous grandeur of the cult of the Apple/Fuhrer Herr Jobs, and disdain for those of us with speckles of natural highlights in our hair. But Friendatella and I have discovered a row of three tables in the back near the bathrooms and with a scenic view of the burlap bags filled with the beans from Lago Atitlan and Vietnam where our elder faces will not diminish the views from the wall-to-wall windows in the front. Sitting their with my legs crossed in the European male way and nibbling my Madeleine, I felt the spirit of Mistinguett take over me the desire to put on one more show before the fogs of the summer return to Topeka on the Pacific.

Music! Revolution! Peasants! Paris!

I have the day off tomorrow and plan to see this. I'm getting a bit excited already.

Interactive Monday: More Mocks, Faux and Fakes

An article in today's Times about the Tokyo Tower turning 50 got me to wondering how many homages to the Eiffel Tower there are in the world. I've seen and driven under Torre el Reformador (above) in Guatemala City, and I understand that there is one in Paris, Texas.

Do any of you know of others?

This summer a couple with a Nebraska twang walking behind me blurted out "San Francisco is just like Buenos Aires." When I turned and sneered back at them silently, the woman nearly gasped. Maybe that doesn't happen in Omaha, or at lest Lincoln. If Buenos Aires is a faux Paris, I'm not sure what that would make San Francisco. I just know San Francisco in no way resembles Buenos Aires. We can't even bury our dictators, members of the Doors and elite here.

The Eiffel Tower was greeted with the same disdain the Transamerica Pyramid received three decades ago. Simply surviving, however, is not a guarantee of gaining credibility, let alone gravitas. The San Francisco Marriott, for example, will be considered as hideous in the next Millennium as when it opened in the 1980s and brought Far North Dallas Gauche Faux Deco Baroque to South of Market. The fact that all of the glasses in the penthouse bar broke during the 1989 earthquake proves that there truly are acts of an angry god of art. The building itself, however, will probably still be standing after "The Big One".

Much of my life I've thought I was a fake but feel I've matured into being more mock or is it mawkish? Perhaps I need to go back to Guatemala City, sit under the tower and soak in the proper waves of falsiness.

UPDATE: If you look closely at the clouds to the left of Torre el Reformador, doesn't there appear to be a cowboy hat?

And here is the tower of Paris, Tennessee, that is five feet shorter than the one in Texas.

UPDATE: Oh, and lest I forget, we have this lovely eight inch Eiffel Tower in the mini-Edwardian greenhouse right here at the Junkplex.

SRO: Paris, Barcelona..The Mission

At one point I seemed to be quite persistent in writing up reviews and observations about shows, films, books and music I consume. I've been a bit distracted about doing that of late. So here is a short glimpse of Friday and Saturday nights' outings.

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In theory I despise stage musicals or, more accurately, the people who are all gaga about them. So I surprised myself by accepting an offer to go with R_____ to see 42nd Street Moon's sparse but effective restaging of Coco with Andrea Marcovicci, who is sort of a non-diva diva. She was oddly an icon for my sister in her high school years when appearing as Dr. Betsy Chernak Taylor on the daytime soap Love Is a Many Splendored Thing set in an unusually bland early 1970s San Francisco.

Marcovicci generally got the role spot on with her subdued approach and shedding what seemed to be unrehearsed tears when singing "Always Mademoiselle". The first staging of the show in nearly 40 years, it reminded me that the Andre Previn score is a guilty pleasure up there with "I'll Plant My Own Tree".

I actually saw the show twice during its initial run. First with my grandmother in the winter of 1970, after which I drove my family crazy singing a la Hepburn "Who the devil kay-yours/What a woman way-yours?" The following summer I saw it with my sister, who was pursuing a sadly aborted fashion design career, when it starred the more appropriate Danielle Darrieux.

This clip of the original doesn't quite capture the flash of the mirrored stairs from the good seats we had. It all reminded me of old flagship store of Hall's in downtown Kansas City. My grandmother wore a get up not unlike Hepburn's. Change the skirt to slacks and lose the jewelry, and it could pass for Junk Thief 40 years later.

There was no mirrored staircase in the 42nd Moon production, but it brought back memories of the original. Apparently enough people want to share that memory, since it was announced that less than five percent of seat are still available during its run.

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Also sold out for its run is Barcelona: Un Mapa, the first film I've ever seen in Catalan and bringing back wonderful memories of my November trip to Catalonia. Although it included an old man fond of dressing up as a woman, a fair amount of male full frontal nudity and surreal dialog, it had little in common with Almodóvar, Buñuel or other Spanish film makers. It was defiantly Catalonian and felt like a Pinter play directed by Bergman.

It was also nice to be introduced Pablo Derqui (on the left) who spent his scene wearing nothing but black brief. Nice to meet you Pablo.

While I can still only speak a handful of Catalan words, I am proud that I could immediately distinguish when the characters shifted from Catalan to Spanish

Two Days Finally on a Tuesday

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Julie Delpy? It's always a bit disconcerting to hear that NYU-influenced accent when she speaks English, making me almost think she's faking it when she speaks her mother tongue. I enjoyed Two Days in Paris this summer, and it's nice to have it finally on DVD if only to push pause for that 18th of a second glimpse of the photo of Adam Goldberg with the balloons. It's definitely not air brushed but now I'll have to wonder if it's Photoshopped.,

Rewatching it, I can't help but thinking how her parents remind me of a dozen or so couples of that same vintage living in Marin County, right down to the funky house with black mold in the shower.

Even if the basic structure of the film has been milked countless other times before, it still feels oddly fresh. I've also had 90% of the conversations with Goldberg's Jack in 92% of my past relationships. Even odder, I have them now that they're exes. I saw one this weekend who made reference to the poet Rambo whose posters are still all over the Mission, dripping paint and all.

Merry Méliès

I've long been a fan of the film sof Georges Méliès, but he has figured unusually prominent in my psyche this year. Perhaps all the dreamy swirls of Gaudi in Barcelona from a century earlier and the Centennial of such Méliès classics as The Dream of the Opium Eater, The Eclipse and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea have added to it. Like other cinematic pioneers from Griffith to Welles, he spent the last decades of his life in obscurity and near squalor.

Thus Brian Selnick's "children's" book The Invention of Hugo Cabret is proving to be a perfect holiday season read. Its 500+ pages are made up of nearly 300 pages of illustrations, yet it is less a graphic novel or Harry Potteresque fantasy as it is a more lyrical Doctrow treatment of history and redemption of an overlooked artist.

Fittingly, I added another volume of Méliès films to my library this week yet have yet to come across a print of the The Dream of the Opium Eater which has long intrigued me. The San Francisco Silent Film festival featured a number of his century old works this summer, yet they have yet to share this one. There is always hope.

Not There and the Light Swallow

We shut down our office early Wednesday, and I managed to go see a matinee of I'm Not There. I'm fighting the urge to go see it a couple more times even though I came away not learning one new thing about Dylan or the times of his greatest work. I'd worried about it not living up to the hype or being humorless. There are some hilarious moments, such as the Cate Blanchett Dylan calling Keith Richards a guy in that great covers band. And the hoopla about the brilliance of Blanchett's Dylan is not over-stated. To me, it's her scenes that get to the core of the story, about why Dylan is still relevant, about why his contention that he is "just a song and dance man" was never said with irony. He was an act, albeit not one with Rockettes or laser shows. Building it all around possibly my favorite Dylan tune, Ballad of the Thin Man, Haynes managed to hit on why our relationship with "stars" or prophets so enthralls us and is also a complete charade. But, at the same time, we need a few charades in our lives to keep certain muscles in shape.

As Blanchett battles with a journalist's attempts to project his perceptions onto him/her, it hit on every aspect of what's annoyed me about unpleasant human relationships in my own life. Too often they have existed in a tiny pool of joint delusion of who the other person is while we retreat into ourselves to allow anger about the other person fester. Sometimes that produces great art, other times it produces madness, depression or suicide.

I also loved that it focused so much on how we can project so much of ourselves on a past we did not live -- as Dylan did with Woody Guthrie and his namesake and Haynes does with Dylan's youth. On top of that, seeing an elderly Richie Havens, whose voice I remember touching me deeply as a child, had great resonance.

It was also fun to be at a movie the day it opened, especially one with so much buzz. Oddly, at the 3:15 matinee, there were maybe three dozen people in the theater. I was one of five under 65.

I followed the film with Puccini's La Rondine with A____ who has tickets as part of the Rainbow Series. A____ and his cohorts insisted that I need to get Rainbow Series since its a chance for me to meet my soul mate. I recoil at that thought but would like to see more Puccini live. La Rondine is definitely a minor but pleasant part of the Puccini catalog. Although I knew Canzone di Doretta and Ore dolci e divine, I'd never heard the entire score or seen it live. A____ and I agreed that it was all very pleasant but more memorable for sets and background action. I mainly remember the maid and a chorus member who stood in an apron smoking a cigarette during the second act scene set in Bulliers. The Belle Epoque vibe was a nice retreat back to the sensibility of L'Eixample, but as A__ and I both said, not operatic enough.

I was humming Going to Acapulco on the BART as I headed home.